The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-04-26
WOMEN OF BUSINESS.
1ney Are Working Side by Side with Men
Throughout the Great Metropolis.


New York Letter in st. Paul Pioneer Press.
When called at the stationer's the other day
TO make a purchase the clerk handed me piece
OF paper marked So %, and walked with it to a
raised desk in the middle of the store and paid
my bill to brunette young woman a high re-
voiving stool, with her hair deliberately pulled,
rose In her tight little gray cloth basque. and as
rare combination of pouting red lips, full round
cheeks, and dainty turn-up nose as ever glad
dened the heart and eve of man. Across Broad
way IN busy drug store the same experience
awaited me-the same except that here were two
meteorological girls, fenced off from the public
as II they were as precious as the cash they ham
died. In a beautiful parlor, such as no man ex-
cept the owner of vast palace could have-a
huge, vauited room, bigger than most house
sites. and carpeted, frescoed. and Uttered with
hardwood furniture-I found the Office Of great
insurance company. The president sat In one
corner, and twenty feet away, reading her paper
over her type writer, sat a buxom woman OF
thirty. At great square table sat the vice
president and. facing him, almost knee to knee,
was seated fair young girl, writing rapidly
as he talked to her In the center of
the room, by a desk that was surrounded by the
desks OF young men with great ledgers. sat
sat another girl with tumbler of roses by her
dimpied hands and wearing a dress that was AZ
elaborate as any street gown on Fifth avenue.
Her dainty touch evoked teegraphic clatter
from typewriter that shone like new silver
plate. As wandered through the group Of art
cabinets that formed the Offices of a great
monthly magazine up town, found a corps of
clerks and workers of all sorts equally made up
of men and women In short. everywhere In
the business districts were and are young wom-
en-. Countlng-rooms wear the airs of parors,
and Offices possess the atmosphere of drawing
rooms
Scarcely any one has had more practical ex-
perienee with the new order of women than Miss
Mary F. Seymour, the head of the Union Steno-
graphic and Type-writng Association of New
York. She says that when she began work
women were so few In her business that che was
obliged to employ men to assist her. AS this
was not in accord with her idea that women
should help each other and could be fitted for
the work she was doing, she commenced to teach
young ladies to become her assistants and this
started the now well known school of which she
Is the head.
She found that parents were timid at first
about allowing their daughters to associate in
business with men, It was Imposs BILE to argue
upon her deep-rooted position that the most
danger to girl is In herself, and that those who
are honest, and dignifed, and pure will not be
harmed by contact with the world if reasonable
discretion In the choice OF work ana position is
shown. Miss Seymour thinks that manhood is
improved and polished and made gentle where
the daily business life is spent in the presence
OF one or more modest young women. and she
makes the very strong point that the present
feminine helpers of men in business are apt to
be a superior class of girls. As to the effect of
the new life upon the girls themselves, she
mas made some very interesting Obserya-
tions. she says that the girls who are
ing women she knows; tae most sens BILE and
elevated in their speech, the least frivolous and
empty headed, the best informed and the most
practical women of the time. By living and
working with men. young women grow accus-
toned to them, lose their sentimental and ro-
mantle notions of the other sex, and gradually
begin to judge men on their merits apart from
one another. The girl Of the old regime saw
only men with parlor manners, and every one
knows that silly and weak fellows often out
shine good and shrewd ones in society. But in
business these women see men as they are, in
their natural every day aspects, and they rate
them according to the best of their power to
judge character. 1t Is Miss Seymour's expert
ence that the young ladies in business marry in
the same proportion as the girls in the homes of
the city, and she thinks they are apt to marry
better
But what is the effect on the man. is the nat
ural thought. In what way is woman affected
What does the husband get on his sidel In
what respect are wives improved2 AS to this
Miss Seymour says that the advantage to the
husband is very great 1t is very true that the
girl In business has not learned to bake or sew
though the chance is she knew more or less about
both before goini, to business. but she has be-
come systematic business like and orderly Her
mental training n rs better fitted her for manag-
ing house we'll than if she could cook aud
bake. and vet have idea of system. Better
yet. she has had her attention turned to affairs,
has heard public matters discussed and grown
interested in them: knows what to read and
learns to like to improve her mind, and to take
part in the serious masculine conversation
around her.
was had with Mr.. Jerome B. Wheeler one of the
firm OF r. Fl. Macy & Co., the largest employers
OF women In this city. He has given the conse-
quences of the feminine revolution much
thought-and, by the way, these large shopping
stores like his have felt the revolution very
deeply. In the largest of those stores in Brook
lyn and New York it had always been the rule
for the women to wait on the counter, and the
ma n 10 a m prih 10 af
ing and buying. In Macv's even the cashier is
woman; the superintendent in charge of all
the employees, 1000 to 5000 in all, IS woman.
Some reader may toss his head and say that
this is because women be got cheaper
than men. l suspect that is so. but after all
this is trte in viewing the subject-a trif1e like
speck of dust in the lens of an opera glass
through which view drama But women's
wages are not so bad Typewriters and stenog
raphers earn from $40 to $25 week; the wages
OF the girls and women In the shopping stores
range from So to $25 The biggest woman's
tailor in this city and London pays the young
woman who designs drapary and braiding for
his lady customers $50 week.
But to return to Mr. Wheeler. He says that
the women who work for him marry in the same
proportion as the women of the same classes who
remain at home. But his girls marry better
That is his experience and their belief Fl Q saws
that the training and discipline the women get
in great store better fit them for
the management of home thar
practical Sroad- minded. steady. sober. 1t rids
them of tae adult infantity of the petted daugh
ter at home, of the frivolity and helpless and
OF that ABNORMAL sentimen taty that leaves Sc
many girls prey to the vicious He says hi
feels very certain that the moral tone Of womer
is raised and strengthened by business expert
ence. In eight years. among the manv thou
sands OF his female employees, he has not known
of a single case of the ruin of a work girl BY :
man in the employ of the concern One youue
woman went astray aud her parents suspected
that some associate in the store must have beer
her betrayer. Mr.. Wheeler investigated thu
case. The girl had disappeared. All the mer
in the store were detailed to search the CITY
which was mapped out for che work The girl
was found and brought to Mr.. Wheeler to whom
she confessed that her ruin was due to dis.an
relative of her mother. In some establishments
the serious mistake is made Of curtaning O.
partitioning the women apart from the men
This surrounds the women with privacy ant
mystery, ard is not good for them or the men
The main benefits ascribed to this juxtapositior
of the sexes are lost in this way. But all this
will wear away and vanish, just as the large
modcum of business men who would not have
woman in their Offices five years ago appears t
have gone from the ken of adyalc cling feminipity
root, stock, and branch.
----AO>
The Former Tennie c. Clafin.
London Letter in New York World
saw yesterday Lady Cook formerly Tenni